Munich, Germany — Juan Oscar came to Germany from Bolivia 12 years ago to study economics. Things didn’t quite work out in school, but he fell in love with the country and its culture and stayed to work. “In the beginning it was difficult because of the language and the climate, but eventually it became my second home,” he told me as we rode around Marienplatz in his bicycle-driven tourist buggy.
It was a different kind of love that kept Carmen in Munich. She came from Guatemala to visit her two sisters — both married to Germans — and got bit by the love bug herself. Her eldest sister, Ileana, says she has been in Munich nine years and has never experienced racism. “Germans treat us very well,” she said.
Although it is not very geographically convenient, many in Latin America see Germany as the land of opportunity. “There are no jobs at home, and in the United States there are too many immigrants, too much competition, so we have to look elsewhere for jobs,” a Colombian man who works for an insurance company in Bavaria told me. There are thousands of Latin Americans who for different reasons have made Germany their home.
Like any industrialized country, Germany has always had an immigrant population for different reasons at different times. For example, in the post-World War II era, Germany had its own type of guest-worker program. Upon experiencing an economic boom, the government signed agreements with countries like Italy, Yugoslavia, Morocco and Turkey to bring in a much-needed labor force that could keep factories running.
Nowadays, the immigrant population is growing at a rate of about 800,000 a year. The great majority of them are from Turkey and other Muslim countries. Yet until recently, Germany didn’t see itself as having an immigration problem, so there were no strict immigration laws. But early last year, an immigration act was put into place, making it more difficult to enter the country and to stay.
Father Alberto Millan established a mission to provide not only spiritual guidance but also social assistance to Spanish-speaking Christian immigrants who come to Bavaria. The mission provides food, shelter and clothing, particularly in the cold winter months, and helps immigrants find jobs and, whenever necessary, provides legal assistance.
Father Millan considers Germany’s immigration laws inhumane. “Immigrants who are here illegally are detained, jailed and deported, no questions asked,” he complains. “Some tell me that living in Munich is like living in one large prison, fearing that any moment they will be detained.”
For the most part, immigrants in Germany make an effort to blend in, and the new government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it a priority to improve the integration of the nation’s roughly 7 million foreigners, mostly by teaching immigrant children the German language.
To help in the acculturation process, Latin Americans have brought a little bit of their own culture to Deutschland. There are Latin restaurants, supermarkets and nightclubs, where even Germans dance up a storm to the rhythms of Latin pop stars such as Juanes and Shakira.
There are no exact figures of how many of Germany’s immigrants are from Latin America, but what we do know is that there are so many Peruvians in Germany that they have established their own Web site to keep up with current events at home and cultural activities in their adopted country, and some 7,000 Mexicans residing in Germany are helping to spice things up in the cold and rigid German society. ***(Maria Elena Salinas is the author of “I AM MY FATHER’S DAUGHTER: LIVING A LIFE WITHOUT SECRETS.” Reach her at www.mariaesalinas.com)© 2006 by Maria Elena Salinas
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
